Christians around the world are being brutally persecuted, facing imprisonment, torture, and even death. We shed light on their responses so that the world may know their stories and that others facing persecution may forge similar paths of witness and resistance.

Report: In Response to Persecution

How do Christians respond to persecution? Some analysts have documented the global persecution of Christians, but few have asked what Christians actually do in response.

This new report conveys the findings of Under Caesar’s Sword, the world’s first systematic global investigation into the responses of Christian communities to persecution. It includes country-by-country analysis, major global patterns, and recommendations for action.

Bring Their Stories Home: Study and Teach

We Respond, a seven-session study series for high school students and adult groups, uses reflection questions, stories, and accessible research findings to allow your group to engage thoughtfully with Christians' responses to persecution today.

Christians Confronting Persecution, a six-week online course through Notre Dame's STEP program, brings together ministers, educators, and other adults to confront the reality of persecution through the lens of faith.

The Bishop of Rome will not rest while there are still men and women of any religion, whose dignity is wounded and who are deprived of their basic needs for survival, robbed of their future, or forced to live as fugitives and refugees. Today, we join the Pastors of the Oriental Churches, in appealing that the right of everyone to a dignified life and to freely profess one’s own faith be respected

– Pope Francis

Are we seeing the end of Christianity [in Iraq]? We are committed come what may, we will keep going to the end, but it looks as though the end could be very near.

– Louis Raphael I Sako, Chaldean Catholic Patriarch of Babylon

We don’t forgive the act because the act is heinous. But we do forgive the killers from the depths of our hearts. Otherwise, we would become consumed by anger and hatred. It becomes a spiral of violence that has no place in this world.

– Bishop Angaelos, General Bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the United Kingdom

We are witnessing levels of persecution of ancient Christian communities of the Middle East at levels that are something that we have not seen, one could almost say, in millennia. It’s very disturbing and disheartening...

– Katrina Lantos-Swett, Chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom

[Shahbaz Bhatti] was a brave man, a man of courage, he took a stand for the minorities. When he took the oath for the new cabinet, he said he would fight till the last drop of his blood. He proved himself, stood firm and paid the price by his blood. This should be an eye opener for minorities and the government. How much more blood will it take to realize that enough is enough.

– Rufin Anthony, Bishop of Islamabad-Rawalpindi, Pakistan

[Religious] minorities are threatened with death and executed, they are kidnapped and raped, they are robbed and pillaged. They are denied water and electric service. Women are kidnapped and sold and forced to marry ISIS members. Women are forced to wear veils.

– Pascale Warda, Former Minister of Migration and Displacement in the Iraqi Interim Government